God Wants Brokenness (Clip) — Ian Robson

God Uses Relationships to Teach Humility

Woman for a young sister, maybe a mother-in-law. But everything is to teach us humility. Father-in-laws can break a son-in-law. Mother-in-laws can break a daughter-in-law if we have the right attitude.

And it should not take long for God to break us, my brothers and sisters. But unfortunately, sometimes it takes a long, long time. And I want you to understand that through the years that God has sought to teach us this in the church, that it's broken men and women that he needs, not capable, efficient, intelligent men and women.

Brokenness Rather Than Self-Sufficiency

It's broken men and women. And God uses different circumstances. Like I said, it may be a father-in-law. It may be a mother-in-law. It may be a brother. It may be a sister. It may be a member of the family.

It may be a boss. It may be a wife. Many husbands think they have difficult wives. They don't see how difficult they are, that there are difficult husbands. But all this is to teach us humility. And if we look at it that way, that God wants to humble me in all the situations of life, I think we have learned something on this earth.

Israel’s Wilderness Testing and God’s Provision

But if we don't learn it, we'll wander around in the wilderness like these people. Why did they have to wander around for 40 years? They didn't realize the clothes on their body was a standing miracle.

They grew into those clothes. They didn't realize their feet didn't swell. They had good health. And all the miracles that when they needed food, God provided for them supernaturally. When they needed water, God provided for them supernaturally.

But just imagine, all this, and all that God did for His people in the wilderness did not break them. So we can experience, we can see science, we can see miraculous answers to our prayers. We can receive miraculous healing.

Difficult Circumstances as God’s Instruments

But that doesn't break people. That doesn't break the breakers. It's difficult circumstances, situations that God allows into our lives. It may be a sickness. It may be a financial difficulty. It may be some problem that we face that doesn't seem to go away quickly.

It's only to teach us humility, my brothers and sisters. That's the first thing. And I believe that right from the very beginning of this church, that that's what God sought to teach us. To leave the denominational church and come out was a humiliating thing.

Humbling Through Ministry and Church Circumstances

It was a humbling thing. Brother Zach was a famous preacher, called to speak at big conventions and all that. And then to be asked, when he offered to step down, the church offered to accept his proposal to step down.

And when I had to leave and we had just the roof over our head and not even one month's salary, it was a humbling thing. Because I didn't know what I was going to do. We were just a few families. I didn't know how I would support myself.

I was willing to, like I said at one time, to even drive the toy train, because that's all the experience I had. But I knew that God would not fail me. He never failed me before that. In the eight, nine years I served him as a full-time Christian worker, he humbled me.

And that's what I can testify to my brothers and sisters, that God used circumstances and situations. You don't know that even in our working together, in our working together with each other, there's not been a smell of strife.

But God has used situations and circumstances to teach me humility, to make me humble myself. And I want to say to you, my dear brothers and sisters, the number of years that is determined that we live in the wilderness is the number of years that it takes for God to humble you and me.

The longer it takes, the longer we are in the wilderness. If we submit to him, we will come out of the wilderness and enter into what we have read here. We'll enter into a good land. We'll enter into a good life.

Yielding to God in Every Relationship

So if we can decide that if in the different situations in whatever number of years you've been in the church, you have not yielded to God, I want to encourage you this morning, yield to him, whatever you're facing, in your work spot, in your home, in relationship with other people, relationship with relatives, in relationship with the brothers and sisters, just yield to him.

Allow him to humble you, allow him to humble me into breakers. Because God needs broken men and women, my brothers and sisters. Many of you young people are very talented and gifted, but I want to say there's no use to God.

Allow him to break you and see what he will do in your life and see what he will bring forth from your life. See what he brought forth from this sister's life, Fanny Crosby, because she was a broken woman.

God used blindness to break her. That she said if perfect sight was offered to her, she wouldn't accept it. That today what she's written, the poems she's written, the songs that we sing are from a broken life.

It's broken men that can bless people. It's broken women that can bless others. Let's really seek to yield to God. That's the first thing he teaches us. And the second thing I want you to see there, the second thing, he says they're testing you.

Testing the Heart Through Obedience

Testing you, they're in the middle of verse two. Testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. That's the second thing that God seeks to do. He tests us to know what is in your heart.

God already knows what is in your heart and mind. He doesn't need to know that. He knows your heart and mind. But so that we would know what is in our heart. Testing you for you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep the commandments of God or not.

And so that's why he humbles us and he puts us in situations where he tests us so that I see I'm not really humble as I think I am. I discovered that, not discover that, but I keep discovering it all the time, even when driving to the meeting this morning.

When just when we think this is one of those days, these mad days when everybody's just driving as they like. And then the Lord shows us, you're not as humble as you think you are. There's a lot more that I need to do in you.

That even in driving on the road that you can be a little more humble and courteous.